The Lazy Mom's Guide to Hosting a Kid's Birthday Party

My twins turned nine last week. I tried to convince them that birthday parties were uncool for the tween set, but they didn’t buy it. They’re junior economists who realize that bigger parties mean more gifts, not to mention more chances for Mom to officially lose it, something that usually results in more TV time.

Magically, we survived. So did the kids, mostly. I only had to make two semi-emergency phone calls to parents. That’s only 20% of the guests!

Without further ado, here is The Lazy Mom’s Guide to Hosting a Kid’s Birthday Party:

Book it somewhere else. Sell your RRSPs if you have to. This will save you from having to clean your house twice. Trust me, it’s worth it.

Book the party right after a meal so you won’t have to feed those cute cretins anything substantial.

Photocopy the invites. It saves your hand from cramping or you from redoing your son’s attempt at penmanship.

Arrive early. Bribe the gym supervisor to keep all the kids an extra five minutes.

Tell the parents the party ends 15 minutes before it actually does. This will save your sanity.

When parents drop off their kids, get them to write down their phone numbers. You appear responsible and—if you parent like me—you’re going to need them.

Apologize profusely for not knowing Guest C is diabetic and that you only have sugary snacks, including fruit.

Simple and Beige-ish. Reusable forks makes you appear to be environmentally conscious.

Attempt to have a no-work-needed theme. I went with Canadian. Instead of a cake, we had Tim Hortons donuts. We also had Ketchup chips, which Twitter assures me are indeed a phenom north of the 49th parallel. Other easy themes are The Colour Beige, which I did half-heartedly.

When you walk the kids to the gym with the eager instructor, tell them to close their eyes as they walk beside the party room that was decorated by Martha Stewart.

While the kids are in the gym with their instructor, work on your blog post, even if autocorrect has no clue what you’re doing. Or does it?

When the 65 minutes of gym time is over, insist that the kids go wash their hands. This wastes time, which helps the party to finish faster.

Don’t freak out when four girls come screaming back from the bathroom informing you that Girl 5 has vomited all over the hallway. Don’t freak out when you realize she had rice for lunch. Don’t freak out when you step in the puke. Call the mom.

Don’t freak out when the child with diabetes takes his blood sugar level and asks you to call his mom.

Laugh when William’s friend gives him a card addressed to another boy.

Send your daughter home with a friend for an impromptu play date.

Be thankful your son received Star Wars Lego (gift it yourself if you have to) so that he’ll be preoccupied for the next two hours at home. This not only allows his donut sugar high to subside, but it also gives you substantial time to have more than one glass of wine before your AWOL husband gets home from the flea market.

Tell your kids over dinner that for their 10th birthday they each get to choose one friend and go to a movie. The same movie.

What kind of birthday parties did you have as a kid?What kind of birthday parties do you host?Have you ever had someone else’s child get sick or injured in your presence?

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Comments

So if your husband could write a post about how he got out of hosting a birthday party with his nuts intact, I’d really enjoy reading that! Bless you for not being one of those over eager mothers who make the rest of us parents look like a bunch of dicks because we don’t rent out the fire station or have a professional fireworks display for a four year old’s party! He’s four and he’s not the Prince of Monaco!!! WTF?!!! Sorry, I’m still a little bitter.

This is the first year we will be allowing the boy to have a birthday party where he can invite friends (as opposed to us inviting only our friends who also have children). I’m still not convinced this is the way to go and have done absolutely nothing in the way of planning. I still have 18 days. Lots of time. When you leave the invites to the last minute, you’ll get fewer guests.

My brother and my birthdays are in the same month. Not only that, while growing up, we hung out with three other boys in the neighborhood–all born in the same month. In fact, our birthdays were only spread out within a mere two weeks. During one hectic year, our mom’s got together, hosted a joint party for all of us and called it good.

Hilarious classic post! Leanne… you rock! As a professional kids entertainer, I have been to literally a thousand birthday parties.and have experienced just about every possible party scenario play out, so reading this was so much fun.

Okay – my two boys birthdays are 4 days apart in the busy month of December. They were turning 10 and 12 the year that no one could attend 10 year old’s birthday on the day he was born so it was postponed. And oddly, yes very oddly, I realize now – the BEST day for 12 year old’s birthday was THE very day of 10 year old’s actual birthday (are you following?) sadly, very, very sadly – as we were singing Happy Birthday and cutting the cake to big brother – dear little brother was struck with the flu and had to listen to that song to his brother while he chucked his cookies – on HIS day. Big planning mistake that I swore not to repeat.

That’s a really great plan for a party – better than mine which always starts martha stewart style on the drawing block and ends up oh I don’t even know how to describe it – pathetic style? – in reality.

I cannot abide by your ketchup-flavored chips, but this post cracked me up. Happy 9th to William and Vivian! Some of the worst kid birthdays I’ve ever been to were 1-year-old parties – people here treat them like weddings. They rent halls, hire Elmo, etc. And my husband has to DJ / bartend, which means so do I. And the one thing they always skimp on? Booze.

Being born on the 27th December meant that parties weren’t high on the list of things to do. Mother made an effort with a homemade cake and lemonade. Most memorable was my 11th. We were ‘on the road’ in 1962, broke down in the middle of nowhere in country New South Wales and were taken in by a stockman and his family. Xmas resulted in a dinner with 30 people, adults and children. They put the hat around when they found out my birthday was coming up and I received the princely sum of ten shillings (about a dollar). I bought a pocket knife and spent the other six shillings on chocolates and sweets. My sister and I were sleeping in the car, an old Dodge. I woke in the middle of the night and puked all over my sleeping bag and promptly went back to sleep. It wasn’t very pretty the next morning. Sis laughed and said it served me right for not sharing. I salute the brave parents who host parties for over excited kids, I really do. Cheers Laurie.

Well, my mamma always said that there is a FINE line between courage and stupidity… and you just may have crossed it. I have no sympathy for you (okay, just a little) as you brought this debacle entirely on yourself by hosting a party. I convinced my children long ago that they needed to host and pay for their own parties (and they are reluctant to depart from their toonies)… hence, we enact a one-child-policy, China style, into our homely parties. And they’re fun. (And MYy guide-to-parenting-book will be entitled, Bribes and Threats). God Bless You, you crazy lady. P.S. Have you yet seen the new line: “Please, bitch, I have twins.” ?

I love the Canadian birthday theme 🙂 and yes we have different snacks than them! I grew up 10 mins from the US border and people would always come up and marvel at the amazing ketchup chips and delicious Cadburry chocolates. Of course when I went down there last weekend, my first time in 10 years, I was a bit of a nerd over all of the stuff they have too – my mom had to ask why I was taking a picture of the snack food aisle; after I explained she helped me try to find spray cheese to take a picture of.

With six kids, we set the bar nice and low as far as parties go. We give them the option of doing something fun away from the house with one friend, or having a party at home. I have 5 boys, so party at home means “throw everyone outside with some foam swords and lock the doors so they can’t get back in”. And that’s only if we remember to do something.

My son’s birthday was a bit after we moved house. I taped together packing boxes and called it an obstacle course (in our basement, of course). Invited twelve 5 yr old boys. They (ran wild and) had a blast. God bless Maple Leaf hotdogs (and no one even barfed, not even the diabetic kid!). Yeah, so I guess that our theme was pretty Canadian too. Fancy parties? Bwah – who cares? What are we teaching our kids then? They need to make their own fun sometimes. When I was a kid HAVING a friend over was the event. There were no Cosmic Adventure playdates. It was just kids and getting together.

I do “homemade” parties (which my son insists on!) still, although I’m starting to suspect it’s less messy, exhausting, and maybe even a bit cheaper to go out afterall… Anyhow! Good for you just for doing it – mostly my friends with twins have adopted the “no party” solution. I too did wonder how your hubbie escaped “with nuts intact” though… 😛